Sometimes we want to have an adventure without leaving the comforts of home. Maybe we want to experience what it is like to live in the rainforest but don’t want to suffer the insects or tropical diseases. Maybe we want to experience what it is like to travel the world but don’t have the money and time to do so. Many teens (and adults) long for the excitement of travel, exploring the world, being challenged by nature, or meeting new people, and reading can be the ticket to those experiences. A well-written book can drop us into different parts of the world or different ways of life and allows us to feel like we are there, experiencing the excitement, the dangers, and the challenges—even if we haven’t left our sofas.

Rumors of a civilization in the clouds have flowed for thousands of years. From classical mythology to medieval tales of women falling from the sky, the name Magonia was once whispered throughout the world. Now, though, the legend is nearly lost. The world has forgotten Magonia.

But Magonia has not forgotten the world.

Below the clouds, Aza Ray Boyle cannot breathe. She is drowning in air, suffering from a mysterious lung disease that makes it difficult to run, to speak, to live. So when Aza sees a ship floating in the sky, everyone thinks it’s a side effect of her many medications. The foreboding hallucination of a dying teen.

When sixteen year-old Jacob Portman stumbles upon the deserted island and crumbling mansion in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, he never expected that he would become so involved with the island’s strange and interesting young inhabitants.

I grew up on Harry Potter: going to the midnight release parties at Borders for the books, going to the movies as each one came out, and, of course, wishing that my Hogwarts letter would arrive, even if it was years later than Harry's, Hermione's, and Ron’s. One of the reasons that I loved the wizarding world that Harry Potter and his friends lived in was all the wonderful creatures they encountered, both the good and the bad. I would spend hours imagining how our muggle world would be different if they existed—or maybe . . . if we knew they existed.

Gawain of Orkney doesn't need a squire. He's yet to make it to King Arthur's court to be knighted, and, if he does need a squire later, he has a few brothers in the hinterlands who will do. For his part, Terence is perfectly happy taking care of his foster father, the hermit Trevisant. He is a kind boy and an excellent cook, though granted a bit confused at present. Just recently the trees had started talking to him.

Trevisant, however, has other ideas. After a shared pot of excellent stewed rabbit, the hermit tells the pair that they are destined to achieve great things together. Terence tells Gawain that it must be so, since Trevisant has the gift to see the future as if it were the past.

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According to UrbanDictionary.com, "Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes."

If you like the Steampunk genre, then you might be interested in the following titles:

The Affinity Bridge: A Newbury and Hobbes Investigation by George Mann
Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes, agents of Queen Victoria, battle both physical and supernatural enemies of the crown. They are called in to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot while dealing with a zombie plague in the slums of the capital and attempting to solve a string of strangulations credited to a mysterious glowing policeman. (catalog summary)

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Inventor Leviticus Blue creates a machine that accidentally decimates Seattle's banking district and uncovers a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead. Sixteen years later Briar, Blue's widow, lives in the poor neighborhood outside the wall that's been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving--until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father's name from the clutches of history. (catalog summary)

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Book #1 of the Luner Chronicles)
As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story. (catalog summary)

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Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Eldest of three sisters, in a land where it is considered to be a misfortune, Sophie is resigned to her fate as a hat shop apprentice until a witch turns her into an old woman and she finds herself in the castle of the greatly feared Wizard Howl. (catalog summary)

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
Derk, an unconventional wizard, and his magical family become involved in a plan to put a stop to the devastating tours of their world arranged by the tyrannical Mr. Chesney. (catalog summary)

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede
Cimorene is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart...and bored. So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon and finds the family and excitement she's been looking for. (catalog summary)

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Alienated by Melissa Landers
High school senior Cara Sweeney gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to participate in earth's first intergalactic high school exchange program. (catalog summary)Other books in the series: Invaded

If you like the out-of-this-world love in Alienated, try these book titles too:

Dangerous by Shannon Hale
When aspiring astronaut Maisie Danger Brown, who was born without a right hand, and the other space camp students get the opportunity to do something amazing in space, Maisie must prove how dangerous she can be and how far she is willing to go to protect everything she has ever loved. (catalog summary)

Into the Dim by Janet Taylor
Sixteen-year-old Hope Walton travels back in time to help rescue her mother, a member of the secret society of time travelers, who is trapped in twelfth-century England in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine. (catalog summary)

This readalike is in response to a customer's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids. You can browse other book matches here.

The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
In a world divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities--seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red, discovers she has an ability of her own. To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. But Mare risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard --a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. (catalog summary)

If you like the fantastical adventure and romance in The Red Queen, try these titles:

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from stories, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin, a High Lord of the faeries. As her feelings toward him transform from hostility to a fiery passion, the threats against the faerie lands grow. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse or she will lose Tamlin forever. (catalog summary)

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: The True Tale of Sleeping Beauty by Jane Yolen
Accident-prone, thirteen-year-old Gorse, the youngest fairy in her family, falls into a trap while on her way to the palace to bless the newborn princess, Talia, but arrives in time to give a gift which, although seemingly horrific, may prove to be a real blessing in this take-off on the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty. (catalog summary)